The UK Retail Grocery and Construction industries are at very different stages in their supply chain management development. Collaborative Planning is seen as a key approach in integrating the supply chain to improve efficiency. It has been widely deployed within the retail sector although there are barriers to its adoption into the construction industry a less formalised approach could be successful. The Agile approach focuses on delivering customer value through development of a flexible supply chain. This is applicable to the UK Construction industry and could help deliver more customer choice efficiently. Collaborative planning is seen very much as part of developing an Agile Supply Chain. For Global deployment both approaches are applicable depending on the environment and how they can be adapted.

Both studies are based in the UK but focus on very different industries. This review will contrast the approaches and their merits, look at the implementation issues and show what implications there is for both industries and global business.

Aims

Parsons focuses on the implementation and impact of collaborative planning in the UK retail grocery industry through a review of relevant literature, and industry survey and analysis of two case studies. His aim is to measure the perceived success of this approach and its adoption.

In the second paper Peck, Juttner and Christopher propose a research project to explore how "agile" supply chain principles could be appropriate to the UK construction industry.